


Lonely Hearts

by Bialy



Series: From the Classifieds [1]
Category: My Time At Portia (Video Game)
Genre: Choose Your Own Adventure, Prologue, letter writing, small town vibes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:54:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24428320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bialy/pseuds/Bialy
Summary: The Builder orchestrates the creation of a whole new section of The Portia Times, just so she can find a naughty penpal. Prologue chapter to a series that will follow the same premise for different characters.
Series: From the Classifieds [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1764088
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	Lonely Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> I have always loved the 'anonymous naughty letters, but gasp, I didn't think it was you!' trope, but didn't want to limit it to just one character. So I give you this: the premise, and then the pay-off.

_F seeks correspondence companion with whom to exchange risque missives. Anonymity essential. Submit enquiries to space behind loose bricks at hilltop Abandoned Ruin. Creative minds a must. Suggest next drop off point in your letter. Lasciviously your_ _s x._

_*_

Cat waits a good eight, nine days before making her first submission to Anonymous Hearts. She very deliberately labours over it with Mei, feigning embarrassment over a fabricated penchant for lewd wire sculptures, and enquiring whether anyone in town knows where she can source any. This is, of course, exactly what Anonymous Hearts was designed for. What _she_ designed it for.

It is only a few weeks later, once the column has become mainstay in the slimmer daily edition of The Portia Times that she submits her _real_ request. She shuffles it in to Mei’s intray during a routine visit and eagerly joins in the speculative gossip with Antoine and Sonia after it hits the presses. _Such scandal_ , she mouths round a glass of winter punch. _Would you ever do it?_

“In this town?” Antoine says, arching a brow. “Probably the only way for anything even remotely combining casual and private. Almost a shame I didn’t think of it.”

“Maybe you did,” she teases him, and _maybe YOU did_ Sonia shoots over the rim of her drink, and they laugh, and the conversation drifts on.

*

She’d put the idea to Mei weeks prior, gushing over the concept of classifieds in an old novel they’d unearthed a copy of. Terribly romantic, she’d said. Terribly scandalous, Mei had said, her eyes glinting. And shouldn’t people have a way, in such a small town, to find like minded folk without putting themselves out there so dramatically? In Atara, where there are so many people, it’s one thing, but here…

And so Anonymous Hearts was born. A step in the right direction, Cat had thought, to scratching an itch she’d been afraid to scratch for too long in this wonderful, quaint, _nosy_ little town.

*

Her instinct, of course, is to check first thing the next day if anyone had secreted a letter away in the little hidey-hole she’d discovered by the ruins. She made herself wait until at least late afternoon by which point she’d been corralled by a jubilant Sam and Arlo, fresh off a very successful ruin dive, into promising to meet them for drinks at the harbour later that evening. Still time, she had thought, until a harried-looking Gust caught her by the arm just as she had passed by A&G and demanded she come in to review the blueprints for her factory upgrade, then and there.

“I thought we were working on banishing the Mr Pushy-Pants side of you,” she’d told him, peevishly, as he nudged her into the office. He’d merely waived a hand airily and spouted off something about a journey with a thousand steps.

“And every one of them a mile when walked with you,” she’d shot back, sweetly, as he rolled his eyes and steered her towards his drawing table with a hand at the small of her back.

By the time she’d finished his painstaking review process, businesses were closing and it felt rude to turn down Albert’s invitation to join the two of them for dinner. It ended up being almost a working supper, as she found herself sandwiched in between the pair across a booth from Antoine and Presley discussing the influx of new commissions the Guild had seen from Sandrock, recently, and would there be any more infrastructure in place to link the two cities in the works any time soon?

As much as she normally enjoys his company, she was almost glad to leave Albert and his half-flirtatious asides behind when it was time to meet Sam and Arlo. She couldn’t deal with the fantasy of a promise right now, not when there might be a literary liaison waiting for her just up the road. But the sight of Django and Xu stopped part way up the hill, deep in discussion, has her turning her feet towards the ocean and saying _tomorrow, tomorrow_.

*

“By all that’s bright and holy, Higgins, just _pick_ one and get out of my way!”

Higgins turns to her, his usual contemptuous sneer firmly in place. “Listen, twerp, you know full well we agreed that whoever gets here first gets first shot at the commissions. You don’t like it, take it up with Presley and his ridiculous ‘no fists in the Guild’ rule. Now, wait your turn.”

He turns back to the board, leaving Cat to groan in frustration behind him – louder than necessary, which she instantly regrets and Higgins adopts his patented ‘lengthy consideration’ pose.

“Don’t stay out all night drinking with those Civil Corps brutes if you’re going to complain so much about turning up late,” he snarks, leaning closer to the pinned commissions.

She pulls a face at his back. “Why do you even know I was out last night, Higgins? Following me around isn’t going to get you any more rep points, you know.”

He snatches a sheet off the board and spins around suddenly, thrusting it under her nose as she jerks backwards in surprise. “Easy _and_ lucrative,” he boasts, before striding off. She scowls after him for a while, before turning her own attention to the board.

Iron bars for Paulie. Four lamps for the Church. Some linen rugs for Phyllis – which is a pretty good excuse to head up to the ruins, since her plan to go diving and scout for any letters en route has been wrecked by whatever Sam had been pouring into their flasks last night. She remembers Arlo leaning across her, warm and flushed, to try to wrestle the bottle out of Sam’s hand as she laughed and held it out of his reach. The thought of his closeness – of anyone’s closeness, really, at this point – makes her shudder, and she grabs Phyllis’ commission without reading the rest and heads out the door in Higgin’s wake.

*

There are no less than three letters in the nook behind the old, loose bricks. Cat’s heart jumps. Any one – or even all of them – could be a joke response, but after some very unexpected backlash to insincere responses to Anonymous Hearts early on, it seems unlikely. Three options. Three, and maybe even more if she checks again in a few days! She smiles her way through the rest of the day with the envelopes burning a hole in her pocket, before begging off early at The Round Table (hardly even a lie – letters or no, it’s going to have to be an early night tonight after Sam’s wretched, delicious concoction) to head home to privacy and, hopefully, something deserving of being kept private.

*

_Dear Lasciviously Yours,_

_Your letter is intriguing, but notably scant on details. As expected, for one fishing for such epistolary companionship in a public forum. Perhaps you’ll grace me with a note on your expectations, hopes...boundaries? If I’m to commit to this endeavour, I must of course first ascertain that it’s worth both of our effort and attention. I’m sure you’ll agree._

_I don’t intend to commit any more to a letter left in a place publicised in the_ Times _. You’ll write back and leave the letter in the hollow on the largest tree on Amber Island by Wednesday evening. I hope to find it a suitably diverting use of my time._

_Yours – potentially,_

_Mr X._

*

_Hey,_

_Thought popping a note like that in Anonymous Hearts was more than this town could take at first! Would be very interested in seeing exactly what sort of letters you’re interested in writing. I’m up for anything if you are – what’s the point of a secret writing tryst otherwise? I’ll look out for another note under the hilltop ruins Dee Dee stop. Barely anyone uses that one. Eagerly anticipating our secret pseudo-romance, should my letter take your fancy._

_Here’s Hoping._

*

_L,_

_I love this town but it can be hard to really relax. I’ve been looking for a way to let off some steam in a way that doesn’t get the whole town talking – great minds think alike, and your letter came out at just the right time. Almost ready to go up in flames if I don’t take matters into my own hands soon, and that sort of things always better with a partner, even at the other end of a letter, am I right? Or am I write. Write me back - there’s more loose bricks for letter stashing by the East gate. Maybe we should get onto one of this town’s endless lists of builders to fill in the holes, eh? But not just yet. ~~Other holes to fill first.~~ God, that was bad. It really has been too long._

*

Cat surveys the options in front of her. She’ll write back to them all, she decides. There’s not enough to go on in these first letters to know which one is her best prospect. Mr X., Here’s Hoping, and the last one, who she decides to dub Flames. She’s a little edgy at his mention of builders, but then, she supposes, there _is_ a thriving construction sector in Portia given its size.

She picks up her pen, looks over the letters again.

She smiles.

_Where to start?_

**Author's Note:**

> I have plans for who these first three letters are from. But once they're done (or underway, or if there's significant interest for different characters than these) I plan to add a second chapter to this with more potential letter-writing partners. Can you work out who these three are meant to be from?


End file.
